


Stones

by michmak



Series: The Wizard of Odd, and other stories [16]
Category: Firefly
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-14
Updated: 2012-09-14
Packaged: 2017-11-14 05:47:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/511974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/michmak/pseuds/michmak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's carried plenty 'a stones of her own in the riptide of her mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stones

Prompt: 016 – Current (list 2)  
Word Count: 307  
Progress: 16/100

 

If his dead are stones on his soul like she says they are, he wonders if that makes him a stone too. Do his actions ripple ever outwards until they fade? Will his face and name be remembered by the people who know him after he is gone?

His little Albatross has been making a lot of sense to him lately. He finds it disturbing 'cuz he don't want to understand her and he sure as hell don't want her understanding him.

He don't need her knowing looks or her sympathy.

He don't need her to tell him how his men live through him.

He don't need to be thinking on that one night, when he was weak and she was willing and he kissed her.

Before Miranda it had been easier to ignore her, to say she was crazy, to see Doc's little mei-mei – it ain't so easy now. He can't imagine what it had been like, having all the ghosts of a dead planet whispering to her. Millions of people, all 'a them with names and lives and people they loved and hated, crowding in her mind and her heart, begging her to speak for them.

She's carried plenty 'a stones of her own in the riptide of her mind.

He can't help contemplating on her. She's so much more than she appears to be – stronger, saner, wiser. Her quiet presence soothes him and he ain't got no defenses against her, except the ones he tries to place between them and they're half-assed at best.

She flows through him like a current and washes away his sins. She makes him believe there are things worth fighting for. She slips into his heart and sees the man who still remembers the names of all his stones and makes his burden lighter because she knows them too.

**Author's Note:**

> Thought I would share a fabulous poem by Leonard Cohen with anyone caring to read this - mostly because I love it, but also because it fits with Mal.
> 
> **Villanelle for Our Time** _– Leonard Cohen_
> 
> From bitter searching of the heart,  
> Quickened with passion and with pain  
> We rise to play a greater part.  
> This is the faith from which we start:  
> Men shall know commonwealth again  
> From bitter searching of the heart.  
> We loved the easy and the smart,  
> But now, with keener hand and brain,  
> We rise to play a greater part.  
> The lesser loyalties depart,  
> And neither race nor creed remain  
> From bitter searching of the heart.  
> Not steering by the venal chart  
> That tricked the mass for private gain,  
> We rise to play a greater part.  
> Reshaping narrow law and art  
> Whose symbols are the millions slain,  
> From bitter searching of the heart  
> We rise to play a greater part.


End file.
